kiss kiss, bang bang (you'll never see us coming)
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: 'Rodolphus Lestrange died on a Saturday. "It seems I won't have to marry the Lestrange boy after all," she said to her father on their way back. "It is such a shame… Whatever shall I do now?"' Bellamort, Western style.


This was written for the Hunger Games Competition, Round 2 (Word: astray, Emotion: relief, Pairing:VoldemortBellatrix, Weapon: hatchet, Genre: Western), and because there isn't enough Western fics out there… I don't really know how much this is worth, but I had fun writing it.

Don't forget to review on your way out.

_Word count:_2657

**kiss kiss, bang bang (you'll never see us coming)**

Bellatrix didn't know England. Her parents had moved to America while her mother had been pregnant, and so the only land she and her sisters had ever known was the land on which her father had built the family ranch.

She knew a lot about England though – her parents talked about it all the time. Her mother especially. Druella Black could often be found in the Library, sitting by the window a book on her lap and her gaze turned to the other side of the ocean.

It wasn't that Bellatrix's mother didn't like their life here, but she clearly wasn't built for it. She couldn't stand the sand nor the overbearing heat in the summers, and even though their wealth was greater here than it had ever been in London, Druella clearly missed the sophistication of her life in England.

Bellatrix though, she didn't mind at all. England sounded boring, too strict and stuffy, governed by rules no one actually cared for. Here at least, she was free.

Here, she could be whoever she wanted to be. And maybe, she thought to herself every time they left the ranch and went to town, maybe one day she could be someone great.

**.xxx.**

Sometime in her seventh year, Bellatrix saw her father clean up his guns and put them away at the back of his closet.

The next day, she used her hairpins to pick the lock – it was ridiculously easy – and stole one of his handguns. She carved her initials, _BB_, in her nicest cursive writing and spent the next few years teaching herself how to shoot it every opportunity she had.

It wasn't easy, but something about the smell of burnt powder and the weight of the metal in her hand just felt right. She stole ammunition every time her father bought some – which was quite often, fortunately enough – and if her ever noticed, well, he never breathed a word of it.

There was an empty barn about half an hour from the main house, and nobody ever went there. She knew it belonged to them – it had come with the property, but honestly Bellatrix wasn't sure her father even knew it existed.

It was the perfect place to practice her aim – there were plenty of hanging chains she could swing when she wanted to pretend to aim at a moving target, and she had found a large piece of some unidentified metal that was perfect to relieve some tension once she had drawn a man's figure on it with paint borrowed from the servants.

The noise of bullets hitting metal was unpleasant, but it was worth it when she saw that her bullets stroke exactly where she wanted them to.

By the time she was thirteen, even the swinging chains weren't a challenge anymore.

By the time she was sixteen… Well, let's just say that she had found better targets than pieces of metal lying around.

**.xxx.**

On one particularly hot summer day, when Bellatrix said she was taking her horse on a ride but actually went to practice her shooting, her sister Andromeda followed her. She almost lead her astray, but in the end decided it wasn't worth the pain.

They never really spoke of what had happened, but after that, things were never quite the same between the sisters. There was something like an undercurrent of fear lingering in all of their interactions, and Bellatrix couldn't find it in herself to actually mind.

In fact, just thinking about the shocked and fearful look on her sister's face when she had seen the gun pointed at her face – not for long, never for long – it made her feel good. Powerful.

Unstoppable.

**.xxx.**

They were quietly dinning when Bellatrix's father dropped the news that she was supposed to marry Rodolphus Lestrange after she turned eighteen. Suffice to say, it didn't go well.

"What do you mean, I'm engaged?" It was lucky she hadn't been drinking, or she would have spit out whatever was in her mouth in her father's face. "I can't be engaged, and even less to some stupid boy who lives next door!"

"Of course you're engaged, Bellatrix. You're our oldest daughter, and you're going to be a woman soon. You can't honestly think you will spend the rest of your life here. Be reasonable, and listen to your father. I'm sure Rodolphus is a charming young man and that you'll get on perfectly well."

"You can't be serious," she deadpanned. "There is no way I'll agree to this. I don't _want_ to marry some useless farmer, you can't make me do this! I-"

"The Lestrange are a wealthy and respected family, and you should be honored their son took such an interest in you. You will be married in two years, and there will be no further discussion on this subject. You are expected at their house this Sunday, at five, and you'd better be on time," her father said, his eyes clearly daring her to say another word. "Is that understood?"

Bellatrix looked around the table a little desperately, her throat suddenly dry. Her sisters avoided her eyes, but her mother met her glare head on. There would be no help coming from them.

"Is that understood?" Her father repeated harshly.

Fury burned deep in her belly but she didn't let it show. She swallowed back her anger, knowing it would be useless to let it out now.

"I understood, father."

Her father nodded and the conversation ended there.

Bellatrix's appetite had long since left her, but she forced herself to finish her dish, her grip tight on the silverware.

She entertained the idea of driving her knife through her father's throat right there when he asked his wife to make sure Bellatrix had a proper outfit for her 'date', but eventually figured it wasn't worth her while. Or at least, not yet.

She left the dining room with hate still burning hot in her chest, and wild plans running through her mind. One thing was for sure: she would never marry Rodolphus Lestrange.

**.xxx.**

Rodolphus Lestrange died on a Saturday.

It wasn't nice, it wasn't pretty, but it was bloody and Bellatrix made sure it was as painful as she could make it.

The body would never be found, but a bloody hatchet was left stuck on the Lestrange family's door the next afternoon, a gory family ring hanging of it by a thread of hay.

Bellatrix made the most convincing scream of terror when she found those, and she spent the next few hours pretending to grieve for a boy she had never met. It was almost strange how everyone seemed to believe she was torn up over what had happened…

"It seems I won't have to marry the Lestrange boy after all," she said to her father on their way back. "It is such a shame… Whatever shall I do now?"

She could feel her father's suspicious glare on her for the rest of the trip, and she waited until got to their front door to say her next words.

"I do hope they have no plans to marry me to their other son… They have already suffered from such a tragedy, I would hate for any harm to befall on… What was his name… Rabastan? He seems like such an honorable man, it really would be a shame if anything… untoward happened to him, don't you think?"

Rodolphus Lestrange was the first person she killed, but he wouldn't be the last.

**.xxx.**

Bellatrix had first heard of the Death Eaters years ago, when her father had dropped by the Sheriff's office for something she could no longer remember. One of the Sheriff's subordinate had pinned a Wanted poster on the wall with a list of crime as long as her forearm for a man belonging to a group of bandits who apparently called themselves the Death Eaters.

She had thought the name poetic. She remembered wondering what it was like to be free to do whatever you wanted the way that man seemed to be. Sure, people were probably looking for him all over the country, but as long as he didn't get caught, that man was free.

If it were her, she'd never be caught.

She fantasized about running away and joining them for a long time after that, before realizing that even if she knew where to find them, the chances they would accept a woman in their rank were pretty slim.

Now that she was older though, she realized that she had been going about this the wrong way. She didn't have to find the Death Eaters, she just had to let them find her.

And, she thought as she skipped town on the day that should have been her wedding day, she knew just the way to do that.

At the bottom of her bag, her father's favorite pistol laid next to several hundred dollars she had taken from her parents.

It was time she caused some mayhem.

**.xxx.**

The first thing Bellatrix did after she left town was get out of the ridiculously unpractical dress her mother had made her wear. She kept it though – you never knew when such an outfit could be useful after all.

The second thing she did was buy pants. They were much more comfortable than dresses when one rode a horse, and they would be useful for her plans.

The third thing she did was enter the bank and shoot in the air.

"This is a robbery," she announced calmly, a smile threatening to bloom on her face as adrenaline ran through her veins. She appraised the room with a quick glance, taking in the cowering clients on the ground and the scared teller in front of her. "Now we can do this the easy way, and you can all give me your money, all your money, or we can do this the hard way and I can kill you all and take the money off your corpses. The choice is yours."

Ten minutes later, Bellatrix left the bank richer than she had entered it, her gun a few bullets lighter. She had never promised she'd let them all live after all. She only needed one person to spread her story.

**.xxx.**

It didn't take her long to build a reputation, and from then it didn't take long for her to get noticed by the people she wanted to be noticed by.

She knew when the Saloon's door opened that night that the man entering was there for her. What she didn't know were his intentions.

"Can I buy you a drink?" The man asked as her sat by the stall next to her. His clothes were well-worn but clearly high quality, and he had at least two badly concealed guns on his person.

Taking in the dark eyes and the even darker hair, she smiled. She could have fun with this. "Sure, why not?" Extending a hand, she introduced herself. "Bellatrix Black."

He took it and his lips brushed against her knuckles a second later, eyes twinkling with something dangerous. "It's a pleasure Miss Black. My name is Tom Riddle."

"The pleasure is all mine, I believe Mr. Riddle."

Riddle waited for three days before he made his offer. She was almost relieved she wouldn't have to take the matter in her own hands the way she had begun to believe she might have to.

"I have to admit I wasn't sure about you when I first heard about you. But now, I can see why you'd be a good addition to our group."

They were sitting in the same places they were when they had first met – they were even having the same drinks.

Bellatrix just smiled. "When do I start?"

"Well, first there's a tattoo parlor we have to visit…"

**.xxx.**

The Death Eaters were like the family she wished she had always had. Instead of sisters who were too afraid to think for themselves, she found men who weren't afraid to kill for what they wanted, just like her.

Of course, not everyone agreed with their leader's decision to bring her into the fold, even if no one dared to say it to his face. Or at least, they didn't until she proved herself to be part of them.

It was just a shame Tom didn't let her kill Macnair while she was at it, but shooting him in the knee would have to do.

No one dared to say a word against her after that though, so she still counted it as a win.

**.xxx.**

The first time Bellatrix posed as a couple with Tom was so they could infiltrate a train rumored to be transporting gold. It was… nicer than she had expected it to be.

In the end though, they had to blow up the train and shoot their way out of what remained of it.

She casted a long look to the fire spreading quickly through the wagon they had been standing in a few minutes ago.

"Nostalgic already?" Tom quipped, his gun still fuming in his hand.

"Relieved actually," she scoffed. "I hate having to wear dresses, and this would have been a very boring trip had we not added some fun to it."

"Fun… Is that what you'd call it?"

She stared at him disbelievingly. "Well, wasn't it?"

He smiled, and she was taken aback by how genuine it looked. "Of course it was."

The second, third, fourth – and all the way up to the tenth – time went about the same way. People were less suspicious of a couple, and even less of a beautiful woman in an intricate dress reluctantly escorting her husband to the bank.

The eleventh time, though, was an accident, in that it wasn't planned. They ran into her father while they were scouting out the local Sheriff department in order to know how long they'd have to get away when they decided to rob the bank.

She had to endure ten long minutes of fatherly preaching on her clothes – why was she dressed in a man's outfit of all things? – on her appearance – look at your hair, what would your mother say? –on her way of living –which he knew nothing about – and on just about everything he could think of.

Honestly, she would never know how she refrained from shooting him on the spot.

She had never felt as relieved as she felt when Tom sneaked his hand around her waist, his body suddenly warm next to her.

"Is that man bothering you, Bella?"

"Not at all," she answered, her eyes not leaving her father's face, taking in his surprise with a satisfaction she rarely felt. "Tom, this is my father. Father, I would like you to meet my husband, Tom Riddle."

She felt more than she heard Tom's next words as he whispered them in her ear. "Do you want me to take care of him?"

Bellatrix shivered, as she whispered back, a dark smile playing on her lips. "Only if I get to help."

Her father never saw the sun rise the next day, and Bellatrix first kissed Tom with her father's still cooling body between them, both of their hands sticky with blood.

In the end, they didn't rob the bank and had to leave town in a hurry, but Bellatrix had never felt so alive as she felt when they finally managed to outrun the Sheriff's men.

**.xxx.**

"Do you think this count as your father giving us his blessing?" Tom had asked her when the first rays of sunlight had come, his fingers painting artistic figures on her stomach with the blood pooled under her father's arm.

"Well, I don't think he's going to be able to say anything against it anymore. Why, were you worried?"

"Never."

_(it wasn't happiness, but it was damn close)_


End file.
